Longview Plant

GenPower LLC, a Massachusetts company, is building a 695 megawatt supercritical coal plant in Maidsville, West Virginia. The Longview plant is expected to be operational in 2011. The Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit has been issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. In 2004, the Sierra Club filed an appeal against the air permit. In Jan. 2007, final permits for the project were approved and the construction began. On Feb. 13, 2007, a group including the Fort Martin Community Association and the Forks of Cheat Forest Property Owners Association filed a legal complaint against Longview Power, on the grounds that the project’s air permit expired in 2005.

According to a February 2009 Sierra Club update, construction has begun on the plant and it is expected to be operating by 2011 or 2012.

On April 10, 2011, it was reported that the plant would start burning coal that month, making it the first new coal-fired power plant to start up in West Virginia in 18 years (since an 80-megawatt Grant Town power plant in 1993). Longview’s coal will come from an adjacent Mepco mine, in Pennsylvania. Longview is expected to burn about 2 million tons of coal per year, the majority from Mepco. The plant will employ 97 people.

Project Details
Sponsor: GenPower LLC Location: Maidsville, WV Capacity: 695 megawatts (769 megawatts gross) Type: supercritical Projected in Service: 2011 Status: Construction

Financing

 * First Reserve Corporation

Citizen Groups

 * Citizens for Alternatives to Longview Power
 * West Virginia Sierra Club, Karen Grubb, kgrubb [at] fairmontstate.edu
 * Appalachian Voices, outreach [at] appvoices.org
 * West Virginia Environmental Council, Chuck Wyrostok, wyro [at] appalight.com
 * Morgantown Citizens for Responsible Development, crdmorgantown [at] yahoo.com

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Coal plant litigation
 * West Virginia and coal
 * Pennsylvania and coal
 * United States and coal
 * Carbon Capture and Storage
 * Existing U.S. Coal Plants
 * US proposed coal plants (both active and cancelled)
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2007
 * Coal plants cancelled in 2008
 * State-by-state guide to information on coal in the United States (or click on the map)